CAIRO - Works of senior Film Programme students at the American University in Cairo (AUC), reflecting a genuine and acute interest in drama, as well as image-making and construction, impressed the audience who attended the second Annual Student Film Festival held in the downtown Tahrir Campus. They also reflected the ideas of these young people, who appeared to be very connected to their country, as most of the films dealt with issues related to Egypt. Given the limited tools and resources at their disposal, the works of the students showed great creativity and passion for cinema and cinematic expression. “The film programme at AUC is evolving both in the number and talent of its students,” said the programme director, Malek Khoury. “There is an increased interest in filmmaking on the part of young people and that is reflected in the increased number of films being screened at the festival this year, especially uniquely shot, one-shot films. “The course is supposed to give the students a sense of how to make a film from scratch – to transform an idea into a script, into the pre-production preparation, into production, and then finally, into the post-production stage, which is the editing,” he added. One of the most brilliant films screened in the one-day festival was Stories of Al-Fagallah, a 40-minute documentary made by Mohamed Abdel-Bary, who is studying filmmaking at the AUC. His documentary reveals the stories of the ancient district of Al-Fagallah. It starts with three young boys living there and pursuing their daily lives, as they wander round the district. The camera follows them, introducing the audience to numerous little shops that once sold accessories for schoolchildren, but now sell sanitary ware. As the camera strolls through the narrow streets, it also highlights the wonderful architecture of the old buildings. Al-Fagallah is a neighbourhood in the heart of Cairo, off Ramses Street. The modern Fagallah was conceived when the Kehdive Ismail established ‘Seket Al-Fagallah' (The Fagallah Road) in the mid-19th century. Al-Fagallah became the gateway to modernity, with its theatres, print houses and flourishing cultural life. It was also a popular area for the cinema industry, as it was home to one of the most famous privately owned studios in Egypt, Studio Nasibian. In the 20th century, Al-Fagallah witnessed the establishment of film studios, and the residency of legendary musicians and writers, like Khalil Mutran and Farid Al-Attrash. It was very ethnically diverse, with Armenian, Iranian, Syrian, Lebanese, Christian, Italian and Jewish families living there. The director also filmed an Armenian resident of Al-Faggalah, who tells his story. “I wanted to show how people think and how they live. That's why, in my film, people speak about this district, their work and even themselves,” said Abdel-Bari. In once scene, there's a boy working in a sanitary ware shop who says that people always like to buy Italian or German sanitary ware not the Egyptian variety, because, the foreign sort is always good. “I've tried to introduce the idea of ‘seeing the other like a commodity'. They don't know the other very well,” the director added. Like many other places in Cairo, Al-Fagallah started to deteriorate badly towards the end of the last century. Its cultural life gradually vanished, being replaced by a commercial life, characterised by sanitary ware and ceramics. The bourgeois flavour of Al-Fagallah has become replaced by a low-income one. Like many low-income neighbourhoods in the capital, its people are marginalised and suffer from lack of education. In one of the most impressive scenes in the film, the director (holding the camera) asks one of the three boys “How do you see yourself six years from now?” Suddenly, the screen goes blackout and we can hear the boy saying: “I can't see.” Another wonderful film was Ahlam Saeeda (Sweet Dreams) directed by Omar el-Mohandes. This comic film tells the story of a young man who has just had a very long and exhausting day and wants to go to sleep, but something keeps disturbing him five minutes, like the doorbell ringing or the TV blaring away in his neighbour's flat. The other films that featured in the festival were Marc Wahba's Absurdity in a World of Reason; Randa Ali's In Red; Ohoud Saad's Black Box; Omar Abo Gabal's An Audition; Farida el-Khadem's Egyptian Muse; Nadeem Abdel-Gawad's Bahr Ein el-Sira; Karim Asaa's Last to Know; Ahmed Essam el-Shamaa's Physics; Rummana Kuvardin's Depth; Robert George's Bar Tales; Samar Negeda's Habiba; Naila Farag's Music Video; and two films by Ramy Allam: Away and The Experience.
